Blogs 2
CHICAGO: 25 OR 6 TO 4
As far as famous last words go, Terry Kath's "Don't worry guys, it's not loaded" is pretty hard to beat. Tragically for Chicago's lead guitarist he had left a single bullet in the chamber of the gun, and a game of Russian roulette ended the life of one of rock music's greatest unsung heroes. Plying his trade in the late 60s and 70s, Kath is largely overlooked in any list of great axemen, yet Jimi Hendrix reportedly described him as "the best guitarist in the universe". Listening to Kath's work on Chicago's early albums, and especially on their bafflingly titled 25 or 6 to 4, it is easy to see why. Chicago are these days remembered – and largely instantly dismissed – for the sugary ballads they produced after If You Leave Me Now, the song that propelled them to the top of the charts in 1976. However, rewind to 1969 and you have a different animal altogether. Exciting, original, politically active and with a pulsating live act. Their first two albums, Chicago Transit Authority and Chicago (they had to change their name after the real transit authority complained,) have become classics of the jazz-rock genre they more or less invented. 25 or 6 to 4, the single from their second album, kicks off with a pounding descending bass line that is picked up by a soaring three-piece brass section and the distinctive vocals of Peter Cetera. Kath's solo, full of flowing invention and with liberal use of the then relatively new-fangled wah-wah pedal, brings the song to a perfect climax. The meaning of the title? The band had already displayed their love of numbers with song titles such as Poem 58 and Questions 67 and 68 but went overboard with 25 or 6 to 4. Some suggested it was code for a drugs deal, others that it was all about gambling odds. The more prosaic explanation eventually emerged from songwriter Bobby Lamm: late one night he was asked the time and looked up at the clock and noticed it was between 3.34 and 3.35am.
LITTLE FEAT: WILLIN'
I absolutely love maps. I always have. I can’t walk past any of those information boards dotted about town and countryside without examining them at length. All those lovely colours, contour lines, graphic icons and, above all, place names. Poetic and evocative, they have, of course, always featured in song: Penny Lane to Strawberry Fields; The Volga Boatman to the Wichita Lineman; Twenty-Four Hours From Tulsa to Are You Going To San Francisco? Not surprisingly, I’m partial to song lyrics that feature place names. It seems to me that British and Irish names seem tailor-made for folk music – the likes of Bruton Town, Star of the County Down, and Over The Sea To Skye – but for rock ‘n’ roll music America wins hands down. Sweet Home Chicago surely sounds more exciting than Sweet Home Coventry and Standing On A Corner in Winslow, Buckinghamshire or Long Distance Information give me Middlesbrough, Teesside just doesn’t thrill! My favourite song lyric featuring place names is Willin’ by Little Feat. Written by Lowell George it is the tale of a border-crossing drugs-and-people-smuggling trucker but it’s the geography of the song that resonates for me. It features ‘Dallas Alice’ and ‘folks and smokes from Mexico’ but the alliterative chorus is the high point: I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari Tehachapi to Tonopah Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made Driven the back roads so I wouldn't get weighed And if you give me, weed, whites, and wine And you show me a sign I'll be willin’, to be movin’ Tucson, Tucumcari, Tehachapi, Tonopah. Beautiful words. Lovely sounds. And, of course, all with their origins in the languages of native America. Tucson means ‘at the base of the black hill’ in O'odham, a language found in southern Arizona; Tucumcari is the Comanche word for ‘ambush’; Tehachapi is a ‘hard climb’ to the Kawaiisu people and Tonopah means ‘hidden spring’ in Shoshoni. I love this song so much I even went out of my way on a road trip to visit both Tehachapi and Tonopah. Sadly, though, I've never been to Tucson or Tucumcari. I first heard Willin’ on Little Feat's brilliant live album Waiting For Columbus while hanging out with my good friend, one-time bandmate and co-writer Peter Monteith at a student party in Bradford in 1978. The lyrics were completely unintelligible at first but I remember clearly us both being mesmerised by the whole album and not moving an inch from the turntable while it played. Shortly afterwards, in my dingy flat above a fish and chip shop in Burley, Leeds and armed only with a guitar, an atlas and several cans of Colt 45 (does anybody still drink this?) we wrote a song we called USA To Go that was chock full of place names. Pete wrote most of the words, while I shouted out random place names from the map and messed around with a few simple chords. It was a heavy rock song about the search for a runaway girlfriend, and although most has been lost in the mists of time I can still remember the chorus: Couldn't find her in New Orleans She left a letter pointing the way Along I-10 to LA, up Interstate Five-e-e-ive Past Sequoia and Yosemite, on to Highway 1-0-1 Through pleasant Crescent City and Coos Bay too Soon waving Oregon goodbye I vaguely recall a final chorus set back in Blighty about being stuck in traffic on the M25 – proof, if any were needed, that American places name definitely rule.
STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN: LITTLE WING
Jimi Hendrix wrote it in 1967, Derek and the Dominos produced a rip-roaring cover in 1970 , but it was Stevie Ray Vaughan who nailed it. Quite simply, if there has been a better guitar performance than this version of Little Wing I have yet to hear it. Vaughan, who was killed in a helicopter crash following a gig with Eric Clapton and Robert Cray in Wisconsin in 1990, was heavily influenced by Hendrix and there is no doubt this majestic instrumental leans heavily on the master's legacy. However, Vaughan lifts it into the stratosphere with a beautifully constructed and virtuoso seven-minute tour de force. This is delicious stuff – from the opening dampened chords to the final prolonged hammer-on. Who needs singing when guitar playing is this good? The cowboy-hatted Texan's interpretation won him a posthumous Grammy in 1992 after the track appeared on the 1991 album The Sky Is Crying. Apparently, Vaughan and his band, Double Trouble, used to warm up in the studio by playing Little Wing and it was only when his brother Jimmy was putting together the album and heard the tape of the performance from 1984 that it ever saw the light of day. Just as well for rock fans everywhere that it did, as otherwise the more famous cover versions of Little Wing might have become those now thankfully lesser-known efforts by Sting, Nigel Kennedy or, heaven forbid, the Corrs.
ROBERT JON & THE WRECK: TIRED OF DRINKING ALONE
Every now and then a band comes along that blows your socks off. Robert Jon And The Wreck are that band for me and this track – from their newly-released album Last Light On The Highway – is the perfect feel-good rock anthem for these troubling times. Surely, in the current lockdown, we are all tired of drinking alone. We’re both feelin’ lonely How’s about tonight You and me We get together And do some drinking? Cause I got a bottle of wine And we both have plenty of heartache We never could quite get it right And I’m tired of thinking Maybe bring over some bourbon Or we could get wild on tequila I just wanna know that it’s workin’ Cause it ain’t been for so long And I’m tired of drinking alone First up, it’s important to appreciate that there is little about Robert Jon And The Wreck’s style that is original or innovative. Indeed, they sound straight out of early Seventies’ Southern rock but, in my opinion, are all the better for it. Original maybe not, but authentic certainly. They have tapped into the music of a time and place and made it appear impressively fresh and relevant and – most importantly in these gloomy times – great fun, as the band’s lockdown video for the song shows. Secondly, an admission. My musical tastes have been largely stuck in the early 1970s since, well, the early 1970s. My favourite book about music is David Hepworth’s excellent 1971: Never A Dull Moment, which singles out that year as the absolute peak of rock – and I will fight (verbally) anyone who disagrees. I can still recall the palpable sense of excitement I felt when I first heard the Allman Brothers Band (on Mike Raven’s late-night Radio One programme the day after Duane Allman died) or – a few years later – Little Feat (at an all-night party in Leeds when I hovered over the record player glaring at anyone who didn’t want to listen to Waiting For Columbus yet again). I felt the same frisson the first time I heard Robert Jon And The Wreck. Fans of bands such as the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top will love their revamped Southern rock sound with superb vocals from Robert Jon Burrison, great slide guitar by Henry James, the slick piano work of Steve Maggiora and a driving rhythm section of Andrew Espantman on drums and Warren Murrel on bass. Blend in some wonderful harmonies and even the Eagles come to mind. For the uninitiated they are not a new band. Based in California’s Orange County they’ve been around since 2011 and had already released a handful of excellent albums (all worth a listen) before I ‘discovered’ them on an Amazon Music stream in the ‘people who like this also like...’ section. Tired Of Drinking Alone is just one of 11 self-penned tracks on the new album and there is not a dud among them as the band continues to blaze a trail. It’s not all Southern rock but an intoxicating harmony-led cocktail of blues, soul and even a few splashes of prog rock. In a recent interview with Pete Francis of Blues Rock Review frontman Burrison talked about how the band has evolved. ‘Every now and then I listen to the old records to see how far we’ve come,’ he said. ‘We’ve discovered a little more about ourselves but some songs off the Fire Started record we made in 2011 aren’t that far off Oh Miss Carolina [another great track from the new album]. But our song Last Light On The Highway is something only this version of the band could have done. There’s so much going on and it moves so well that I don’t know if we could have pulled that off 10 years ago.’ The title track and the rest of the album were premiered by the band with an accomplished live-from-home performance. Enjoy responsibly – and get wrecked!
DICKEY BETTS: BLUE SKY
In the summer of 1974, like many other 18-year-olds at the time, I was nervously awaiting my A-Level results. I needed a B and two Cs in order to read International History and Politics at Leeds University and wasn't too hopeful. In those days such notifications came via the postman and I remember the scene when - on the designated day - the familiar figure walked up to my front door as I idled about in the street, trying to look nonchalant. Grabbing the letter I ripped it open and saw – in wonderful black and white - that I'd achieved the almost unimaginable feat of an A and two Bs. I smiled to myself and then smiled some more and then, with a rictus grin locked on my face, raced inside. I needed, right there and then, to hear some music, good time, infectious, happy music which – as an obsessive fan of delta blues – didn't feature much in my collection. I stared impatiently at my shelves of LPs, not wanting to lose the moment, and finally grabbed Eat A Peach by the Allman Brothers Band. There was a sparking blue sky outside so on the turntable went Blue Sky. Perfect. Perfect then and perfect now. It is still my go-to tune to create a real good-time feel. You're my blue sky, you're my sunny day Lord, you make me high when you turn your love my way Turn your love my way Blue Sky is a very simple love song, written by Betts for his girlfriend of the time Sandy 'Bluesky' Wabegijig. It kicks off with a catchy guitar riff that perfectly sets up a joyful, country-esque groove – a complete change from what was then the Allmans' staple of jazzily improvised blues/rock – with a chorus that dissolves into a dynamic and flowingly melodic Duane Allman solo played over just two simple chords, E and A. Listen and try not to smile. Impossible.
MUDDY WATERS: GOT MY MOJO WORKING
If you are talking blues standards then they don’t come much more ready-made, boil-in-the-bag than Muddy Waters’ Got My Mojo Working, which has become a staple of the genre, recorded or played by just about everyone who has ever strung 12 bars together. Let’s face it, who wouldn’t want to get their mojo working? Although forever associated with McKinley Morganfield, aka Muddy Waters – a giant who straddles the history of blues, from the Delta alongside Robert Johnson, through the electrified blues of Chicago, to London with the Rolling Stones – it was originally written in 1956 by Preston ‘Red’ Foster, a mysterious presence in the history of the blues about whom very little seems to be known. One man who did meet him, the music promoter Sol Rabinowitz, described him as ‘one of the shyest human beings I’ve ever met’. The first recording of Foster’s song was by the then 22-year-old R&B singer Ann Cole and it was almost immediately picked up by Muddy after hearing her perform it when she supported him on his tour of the southern states in 1956. Back in Chicago, he quickly recorded his own version, changing some of the words, and (quietly registering his name as writer in the process) released it in January 1957, coincidentally on the very same day that Cole’s original version also came out. The rest is blues history. Cue harmonica… Got my mojo working, but it just don’t work on you Got my mojo working, but it just don’t work on you I want to love you so bad, I don’t know what to do Going down to Louisiana to get me a mojo hand Going down to Louisiana to get me a mojo hand I’m gonna have all you women under my command Got my mojo workin’ Got my mojo workin’… Got my mojo workin’, but it just don’t work on you I got a gypsy woman givin’ me advice I got a gypsy woman givin’ me advice I got a whole lottsa tricks keepin’ her on ice We have probably all, at one time or another, lost it and then got it back again, but what exactly is a Mojo – other than a well-known music magazine? It has entered the lexicon to define rediscovering your confidence, energy or enthusiasm but its origins lie deep in hoodoo, an African-American folklore of the Deep South of the United States. It’s basically a lucky charm, also known as gris-gris, worn to give protection from evil (slave drivers or law enforcement), to attract love, money and employment, or to communicate with spirits or cast spells. A small canvas or leather bag, often coloured red, it is filled with herbs, spices and mysterious other ingredients such as bones (the mojo ‘hand’ of the song’s lyric), graveyard dirt or gunpowder and is supposed to be carried at all times, preferably next to the skin. It is also sometimes known as a nation sack – a term borrowed from the Native American ‘nations’ of Mississippi – which was a bag in which women kept loose change hidden under their skirts. This custom was originated by prostitutes who worked Memphis and other towns along the Mississippi River, the jingle of the hidden coins subtly advertising their trade. The phrase appears in Robert Johnson’s classic Come On In My Kitchen and is a lyric that had long baffled me: Oh, she’s gone, I know she won’t come back taken the last nickel out of her nation sack You better come on in my kitchen It’s goin’ to be rainin’ outdoors As a frustrated musician and a fan of the Delta Blues, I had always dreamed of becoming a bona fide blues guitar man – after all I spent my formative years in the blues hotbed that is Richmond-Upon-Thames, ancestral home to the Yardbirds and the Rolling Stones (named after a Muddy Waters song). So, some 40 years ago I travelled to the Deep South in search of my own mojo, both figuratively and literally. I finally discovered the real thing on a scorching hot and humid afternoon at 739 Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans, at Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo, a museum and shop dedicated to African American folklore. It is a bit of a tourist trap but is supposedly haunted by the ghost of Laveau, the famous 19th century Witch Queen of New Orleans. It’s full of herbs, spices and other paraphernalia which, when combined and bagged up, create made-to-order mojos. After much deliberation I chose the mixture guaranteed to help make me rich, famous and irresistible to women. So, I hear you ask, did it work? Er, well, not exactly. Perhaps on reflection I should have worn it day and night next to my skin rather than leave it languishing in my guitar case. Next time I suppose I’d be better off selling my soul to the Devil at the crossroads. Footnote: In 1973, Foster, the footnote to a footnote, briefly entered the scene again, winning a court case that ruled he was indeed the true author of the song, before he subsequently disappeared back into the ether. He was described by a court reporter at the time as ‘a Black man, about 40 years of age, with bleached blond hair and highly modish clothing. He sat quietly in the courtroom and did not, in my presence, communicate with counsel for either party. His presence was known to both parties, and neither counsel chose to call him as a witness’. He must have been happy to get his mojo back.
PAUL McCARTNEY: HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE
I’ve read some pretty heavy books in my time – Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Joyce’s Ulysses, Cervantes’ Don Quixote, even some of the short stories by Jorge Luis Borges (who I once met in a bar in the French Quarter of New Orleans, but that’s another story) – but none as heavy as The Lyrics by Paul McCartney, which weighs in at a massive nine pounds and is impossible to pick up with one hand. Published at the end of 2021, the 874-page, two-volume tome is, as McCartney has said, the nearest thing he’s likely to get to writing a full-scale autobiography. It certainly makes a fascinating read. Cleverly arranging the full lyrics of his selection of 154 songs in alphabetical order, it gets over the awkward chronological nature of a conventional autobiography, which would have made the first half of the McCartney life story so much more interesting than the second. ‘Some people, when they get to a certain age, like to refer to a diary to recall day-to-day events from the past,’ McCartney writes in the foreword. ‘But I have no such notebooks. What I do have is my songs – hundreds of them – which serve much the same purpose.’ What the book tells you is that Macca is more than capable of writing very average songs – not all of them are masterpieces – but you can forgive anything of the genius who also created Yesterday, Blackbird, Eleanor Rigby, Hey Jude, The Long And Winding Road, Let It Be and Maybe I’m Amazed, among countless others. Surprisingly, perhaps, McCartney reveals that his own favourite is Here, There and Everywhere from The Beatles’ 1966 album Revolver (released just six days after Geoff Hurst’s famous hat-trick at Wembley – how blessed we were to be alive in that dawn). To lead a better life, I need my love to be here Here, making each day of the year Changing my life with a wave of her hand Nobody can deny that there’s something there There, running my hands through her hair Both of us thinking how good it can be Someone is speaking but she doesn’t know he’s there I want her everywhere And if she’s beside me I know I need never care But to love her is to need her Everywhere, knowing that love is to share Each one believing that love never dies Watching their eyes and hoping I’m always there I want her everywhere And if she’s beside me I know I need never care But to love her is to need her Everywhere, knowing that love is to share… ‘Now when I sing it,’ McCartney writes, ‘I look back at it and think: The Boy’s Not Bad. In fact, if pushed, I would say that Here, There and Everywhere is my own favourite of all my songs. ‘My favourite line is Changing my life with a wave of her hand. I look at that line now and wonder where it came from. What was it? Was I thinking of the queen waving from the royal carriage? Or was it just the power of the little thing. The power of doing hardly anything. She waves her hand and she changed my life. It summons up a lot.’ Using each song as the starting point to expand on aspects of his life at the time he was writing, there are some fascinating insights into the history of The Beatles and how the great man goes about writing songs. The story of writing Yesterday is, of course, the stuff of legend. The melody came to him in a dream, the lyric started off simply as Scrambled Eggs and ended up as possibly the greatest song of the 20th Century. But this wasn’t the usual way he wrote. For such a master of melody you might have thought he would start by playing around with a tune in his head. But no. He usually begins by just noodling chords on his guitar or piano and seeing what comes up. This revelation was rather exciting for me as this is exactly how I write all my songs – and like McCartney I can’t read music either. Sadly, all similarities end there. This technique was beautifully demonstrated in Peter Jackson’s mammoth and unmissable documentary Get Back, which is essential viewing for any Beatles fan. In it we see Paul, noodling away in the background, gradually coming up with what will become Get Back, which magically emerges almost fully formed. On another occasion the rest of the Fab Four are talking away nineteen to the dozen while you can just hear Paul in the background playing around with a series of piano chords that – with an exquisite frisson of recognition – you know will shortly become Let It Be. Each of McCartney’s 154 songs in the book are presented in bite-sized chunks of lyrics and autobiographical stories alongside previously unpublished photographs and documents from Paul’s personal archive. It is an absolute delight to tackle the book while simultaneously asking Spotify, Siri or Alexa to play the songs for you as you read. Utterly magical. Weaving your way gently through the tapestry of songs the full story emerges – The Quarrymen, meeting John, George and Ringo, the Pete Best-Stuart Sutcliffe-Cavern days, what they all got up to in Hamburg, the early success as The Beatles, the girlfriends, Beatlemania, the trip to Rishikesh, the break-up, Wings, the solo career, the farm in deepest Scotland and his life today – it’s all there. Paul is, naturally, the major character in the book but the presence of John and Linda permeate just about every page. The book is dedicated to his third wife Nancy. No mention anywhere, though, of Heather Mills. That just made me wonder if his experience with his second wife ‘inspired” any of his later songs – if they did, he doesn’t mention it. For people of my generation The Beatles represent nostalgia for a golden age that, in today’s troublesome world, seems further away than ever, so please excuse me as I ask Alexa to play Hey Jude for the millionth time.
COWBOY: PLEASE BE WITH ME
Anniversaries are days of remembrance, reflection and wondering what might have been. On October 29, 1971, the great Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident in Macon, Georgia. He was 24 years old and only just beginning his journey. I remember vividly the moment when I first heard his stunning guitar playing when the late-night Radio 1 DJ Mike Raven spun the Allman Brothers Band’s Stormy Monday by way of a tribute. It was a bittersweet moment for me: I discovered a wonderful new guitar player and then lost him, all in the eight and a half short minutes of that sublime track. Today, barely a week goes by without listening to at least one track from the Allmans’ classic Live At Fillmore East album, indisputably one of the best live rock albums out there, to marvel once again at his absolute mastery of the electric slide guitar. Allman, of course, also illuminated Eric Clapton’s Derek And The Dominos’ Layla album and his reputation as one of the finest guitarists in the history of rock stands firm to this day. But Allman’s legacy is also to be heard in his less heralded work as a session musician. For a brief period between 1969 and 1971 he was a regular at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Alabama, featuring on records by such artists as Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Clarence Carter, King Curtis and even our very own Lulu, who somehow found her way to Muscle Shoals to record a Southern-tinged album New Routes in 1969. For me, though, one of the best examples of Duane Allman’s work can be heard on Cowboy’s Please Be With Me, from their second album 5’ll Getcha Ten, which was coincidentally released in the same month that Duane died. Cowboy were a Southern rock band formed in 1969 in Jacksonville, Florida, by singer-songwriters Scott Boyer and Tommy Talton and also originally featured pianist Bill Pillmore, bassist George Clark, guitarist Pete Kowalke, and drummer Tom Wynn. They made four albums in the 1970s and Boyer and Talton, the driving force of the band, made periodic reunions together before Boyer died in February 2018. According to Talton: ‘No one could write a more beautiful ballad than Scott Boyer. I love him and I miss him more than anything that can be said.’ In an interview with AL.com in 2015 Boyer described how Please Be With Me came about: ‘I was sitting in this motel room all by myself and I grabbed a pad and pencil and started writing freeform. Whatever popped into my head. About 10 minutes later and I had like 10 verses and three choruses, but nothing rhymed and nothing made any sense. ‘It was just right out of my head and on to the paper. So I started connecting things. Put the third line from the third verse with the fourth line in the eighth verse. Not necessarily because they made sense but because they rhymed. And I put together like three verses and a chorus and I put the pad down and I rolled over and went to sleep. ‘Duane came into town the next day and said: I want to play on this record with ya’ll but I want to play something brand new. We started tossing things around. And I said: Well, I wrote this thing last night. There’s nothing much to it. And I played the song for Duane and [producer] Johnny Sandlin was also in the room and when I finished it they both went: Wow, you wrote that last night, man? That’s beautiful.’ The song has become Cowboy’s best-known and much-loved song. It is a beautifully sung, poignant and haunting love song, embellished by an unforgettable acoustic Dobro part by Allman. ‘I loved what Duane played on it,’ said Boyer. ‘That Dobro he played on it just comes to life when that thing comes on, man.’ It sure does. Upon my word what does it mean? Is it love or is it me That makes me change so suddenly From looking out to feeling free? I sit here lying in my bed Wondering what it was I said That made me think I lost my head When I knew I lost my heart instead So won’t you please read my signs? Be a gypsy Tell me what I hope to find deep within me And because you can find my mind Please be with me And of all the better things I’ve heard Loving you has made the words And all the rest seem so absurd ’Cause in the end it all comes out I’m sure So won’t you please read my signs? Be a gypsy Tell me what I hope to find deep within me And because you can find my mind Please be with me Duane’s performance is so exquisite it’s almost as if he is pulling on heart strings rather than the steel-strung ones of his Dobro. Quite simply it’s superb. The song had a profound effect on the late Allman Brothers Band drummer Butch Trucks. In an interview with Alan Paul for his book One Way Out, Trucks said: ‘A few weeks after Duane died, when I still hadn’t really let loose or accepted it, I put on Please Be With Me and the dam burst and I started crying and crying, just racked with grief. I was sitting there listening to the song over and over and crying. To this day I can’t hear it without getting choked up.’ A few years later Eric Clapton covered Please Be With Me on his 1974 album 461 Ocean Boulevard. That he plays Duane’s part almost note for note says it all. RIP Duane Allman: November 20, 1946-October 29, 1971
ROBERT JON & THE WRECK: RESCUE TRAIN
What do you do in times of Covid-19 if you are a musician in a rock band? Rishi Sunak might suggest you retrain as a delivery driver or a lockdown marshal but, for most, keeping the music alive has become simply a matter of survival. The behemoths of rock are no doubt safely holed up in their mansions, chilling in the sunshine while waiting to announce another farewell world tour, taking in massive venues with eye-watering ticket prices. However, it’s the not-so-well-known bands that are suffering. Bands such as the superb but relatively unknown Californians Robert Jon & The Wreck. They haven’t been able to play a live gig since March, had to cancel a summer European tour and, since fewer people buy CDs these days, have seen their income severely hit since the pandemic struck. Many people today access music through monthly subscriptions to streaming services such as Spotify, Apple or Amazon. Artists do earn money through streaming – but, at an average rate of less than a cent per track streamed, not much. To put it into context, Ed Sheeran has more than 51 million listeners a month on Spotify while Robert Jon & The Wreck have around 12,000. Consequently, their highly acclaimed album Last Light On The Highway, released in May, would need to have considerably more followers if the band’s five members are to make a living wage. ‘We’ve been trying as hard as we can to keep our fanbase engaged during Covid,’ said Andrew Espantman, the drummer and business manager for Robert Jon & The Wreck. ‘Our income has been whittled down to basically one source, which is our online store. ‘We had just released Last Light On The Highway and that was going great until it wasn’t. The launch was amazing, we couldn’t have asked for better, but naturally it started to dwindle so we had to think on our feet. We went back through all our inventory and had to think like our new fans. What would they want? Every time we tried to answer that question it led to us offering something that a new fan would want. That’s how the digital download package was born.’ The digital package, which is available from the band’s website for the bargain price of $40, is a brilliant idea and something I would urge everybody to check out. The band have made available not only their entire recorded output of nine albums, but also liner notes and lyrics, two hours of additional live music and demos and over six hours of album commentary, telling the fascinating behind-the-scenes story of the band over the last 10 years. ‘We aren’t signed to a label and manage our own store,’ said Espantman, ‘so we always prefer it if our fans come to us. Bandcamp, iTunes, and other places you can buy music are taking a cut. Those sites can be helpful for bands just starting out but at this point we don’t want to have any middlemen between us and our fans. Every time we think of our fans first and try to make something special for them.’ The band are working hard to maintain contact with their followers – and they have a burgeoning fan base in Europe. They live streamed a performance of their new album when it came out in May and each week produce a video podcast where they talk engagingly about music, beer and life in general. (They also ran a photographic competition to coincide with the release of their song Do You Remember which was somehow won by a very chuffed yours truly. Here’s the winning photo and that’s me again with my prized T-shirt.) ‘Running a music business is a lot of work and you really have to love it,’ said Espantman. ‘The more you put yourself and your tastes and your lives out there, the more you’re going to get back. Focus on creating a lasting relationship with people who enjoy what you do. We’ve gotten some of the best advice and feedback from our fans. ‘We are worried a little about the financial future of the band but we’ll figure it out. A lot of the Covid lockdowns is a blessing in disguise and you just have to treat it like that in order to get the most out of it. We’re just keeping our nose to the grindstone writing songs, making shirts, and doing everything we can to keep the fire burning.’ For newcomers to the band I would highly recommend giving their Last Light On The Highway album a listen, but for the purpose of this blog I’ve picked out a song called Rescue Train – a great shuffling bluesy boogie – mainly because it does not feature on any of their albums and the best way to get it now is to download their digital package. ‘Rescue Train is an old tune from Robert’s solo record before The Wreck was even officially The Wreck,’ said Espantman. ‘A lot of those old songs would be in our set when we were first starting out and we never outgrew that great blues song. We decided to bring it back when we were outside of Nashville with our friends at Shuffle Brothers Studios. ‘I don’t think we did more than one take and that was all live off the floor. Rescue Train is a simple love song written about young relationships. It does ring true in a broader sense lately because we can all use some saving right about now.’ So, how about it? One, two, three… All aboard the Rescue Train. Your rescue train is here To take you away Your rescue train, my dear Is coming today
ETTA JAMES: I'D RATHER GO BLIND
If you like your songs sad then there are few more desolate than Etta James’ I'd Rather Go Blind. A bluesy soul classic from 1967, it simply oozes abject misery; a doomed relationship, the shock and unbearable pain of seeing a loved one with somebody else and knowing it's all over, the pleading, the self-pity, the broken heart. That we've all probably been there at one time or another means it's all too easy to relate to and wallow in the anguished depths of emotion stirred up by James’ powerful rendition. Something told me it was over When I saw you and her talking Something deep down in my soul said, 'Cry, girl.' When I saw you and that girl walkin' out I would rather, I would rather go blind, Than to see you walk away from me The song is a perfect synergy of music and words, the impact of the simple organ, guitar and horn arrangement intensified by heart-wrenching, poetic lyrics – a mesmerising combination that lifts the song into greatness. I was just, I was just, I was just Sitting here thinkin' of your kiss and your warm embrace, When the reflection in the glass that I held to my lips now, baby, Revealed the tears that was on my face Written by Ellington Jordan, Billy Foster and (although uncredited for ‘tax reasons’) Etta James herself, this two-and-a-half minute alternating two-chord (A and B minor) classic was recorded at the legendary Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama and, astonishingly, it was originally released as the B side of James’ top-40 hit Tell Mama. Not surprisingly it has been covered by just about everyone from Beyoncé to Rod Stewart since (videos below). My first exposure to the song was the 1969 Chicken Shack version, sung by Christine Perfect (later Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie). It's a song I've always loved, and the thrill, a few years ago, of discovering Beth Hart – one of the finest voices around today – was magnified no end by the fact it was her version of the song that I first came across. Back in 1992 I was lucky enough to get tickets to see Etta James at the Town and Country Club in London’s Kentish Town, now the Forum, and was naturally very excited to be about to hear the original version sung by the original artist. However, what should have been a highlight of my gig-going career sadly did not live up to expectations. James came on stage – eventually – over three hours late, obviously the worse for wear, and only performed for about 30 minutes. Of course she sang I'd Rather Go Blind but to one completely disillusioned fan, on that night at least, I'd Rather Have Been Somewhere Else! Very, very sad. Just like the song.
CYNDI LAUPER: I'M GONNA BE STRONG
The adorably bonkers Cyndi Lauper is surely one of pop music's most underrated singers, largely because of who she's not. Ever since she emerged from the New York scene in the early 80s she has had the misfortune of being compared to Madonna. Some misguided souls even feel Lauper is but a pale and quirky shadow of Ms Ciccone but this is so, so wrong. In many ways it is Lauper who puts Madonna in the shade. For a start she can sing, and I mean really sing. Blessed with perfect pitch and a range of four octaves, her voice is a thing of wonder. She might be more famous for the jokey pop anthem Girls Just Want to Have Fun but listen to the subtlety of tracks such as the wonderful True Colors or Time After Time and it is impossible not to appreciate just how good she is. Her voice, though, is arguably best displayed on the 1994 single I'm Gonna Be Strong, a hit for Gene Pitney in 1964 and which Lauper herself originally sang with her band Blue Angel in 1980. A highly emotional song of a relationship breaking down, it's unusual in as much as it doesn't really have a chorus – it just builds and builds, adding layer upon layer of pain and hurt as Lauper's majestic voice grows stronger and more insistent, higher and higher until it reaches a heartbreaking climax. Wonderful. From 2012
IAN TASKER: ON THE BUSES
Back in 1977-8, when Geoffrey Boycott was still king and Harvey Nichols was restricted to the poncey south, I was a bus conductor on the mean streets of Leeds. There is a ridiculous theory put about by politicians that buses are a vital service for hard-pressed commuters. What a load of rubbish. They are there so the crew on board can have a good laugh. When I was in Leeds, the terrible shadow of the Yorkshire Ripper still haunted the city and nobody went out at night - well that's what all the TV documentaries say now, but it wasn't like that at all. People partied. How they partied. And we weren't about to miss out simply because we had a late-night timetable to keep to on the 93 to Cookridge. Of course some Leeds Metro drivers kept grimly to their task, uttering not one word, keeping their eyes on the road, obeying the speed limit, pulling in at every stop and even waiting that extra minute for little old ladies to struggle up to the bus. But not all of them... There was the one who put his foot down towards the end of each journey so that the two-minute wait at the quiet out-of-town terminus could be stretched to 15, and enough time for a quick pint; the one who terrorised unruly schoolchildren by deliberately driving past their stop and making them walk back in torrential rain (he'd probably be jailed for that now); better still the decidedly non-PC driver who, on spying a passenger displaying more than the usual feminine charms, would keep his eye glued to his rear-view mirror, wait for me to approach the target and utter those immortal words "Any more fares please", and then lurch the bus violently from side to side so that I would end up helplessly perched in some soft fleshy area I had no right to be in. Oh how we laughed (well I was much younger in those days). Then, of course, there were the passengers: the crafty pensioners who attempted to defy the rule that they only use their passes after 9.30am; the woman who rode up and down the same route because she liked men in uniform; the fresh-faced new students who asked to be told when they had reached the stop for their halls of residence, a request conveniently "forgotten" if they were a particularly attractive girl, thus giving the crew the entire return trip for an elaborate chat-up. But it wasn't all sex 'n' booze 'n' rock'n'roll. Oh no, there was plenty of snooker too - and endless bacon butties in the canteen. Then there were the minor accidents necessitating a quick "Sorry people you'll have to take the one behind", followed by a two-hour wait with your feet up on the back seat reading the Sporting Life while the rescue car came out. The unsociable hours were a bit of a killer though. Getting up at 3.30am (with no bus to take you to work, obviously) was a bind. More depression came with the daily ritual of serving people going for a night out on the town, and the grimacing as they returned on the last bus, totally plastered, normally greeting their favourite conductor with humorous repartee such as "I'm not paying". Safe in the knowledge that no ticket inspector (employed to check up on conductors, not passengers) ever got on board a last bus from the town centre, I avoided any threat of violence with a cheery "Fair enough chum", and then a plaintive "Does anybody feel like paying?" which normally guaranteed everybody else did. So what lured me away from the thrill of life on the road? It was the Great Leeds Bus Strike of 1977 that did it for me. A spat with management over rescheduling had caused bus workers to down their snooker cues and withdraw their labour, and after five weeks of having to hike the three miles to Headingley garage to pick up my strike pay (no buses you see, the bastards were on strike), I was broke. It was then that, for the second time in my life, I made the front page of the papers. There, all over the Yorkshire Post was a picture of me leaving the Grand Theatre in Leeds after a meeting of the striking bus crews. "Militant bus workers," the caption went, "after their unanimous decision to continue their strike". Well, it wasn't quite unanimous, although my meek vote for a return to work in opposition to 300 or so hard-line bus workers wasn't the most visible ever. Anyway, it was seeing my face in the papers that day that suggested an alternative career for me. After all, I had a track record in the media. In July 1967 I had my picture splashed all over page one of the Richmond and Twickenham Times - in a rubber dinghy with Valerie Singleton - but I digress. Originally published in the Guardian newspaper
Some of these blogs were originally published on the music website herecomesthesong.com or the newspaper site guardian.com
